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As a digitally active business, the last thing you want is to lose data. Whether it’s at the hand of cyber attack, human error, or natural disaster, data loss is extremely risky and costly. That explains why your business requires a backup as well as a disaster recovery solution. The combination of disaster recovery and data backup solutions helps to maximize productivity, diminish data loss, and ensure uptime in the midst of natural disasters (which are very common in Florida), attacks, or other compromising situations.

http://sjctech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/data-backup-and-recovery.jpgAccording to Security Week’s research, the volume of data loss at an enterprise level has escalated to over 400% in the past several years. Unfortunately, the trend doesn’t appear to slow down anytime soon. Presently, with the upsurge of big data, BYOD policies at the workplace, and cloud computing, it’s turning out to be challenging for business enterprises to protect their data. Evidently, everything seems to point to why businesses need a data backup and recovery plan.

The following are some of the reasons why a data backup and recovery plan is essential in Southwest Florida:

#1: Protects against the effects of natural disasters

Whether it’s a blizzard, hurricane, earthquake, flood, or any other extreme natural disaster, a variety of uncontrollable circumstances can cause a business to experience downtime. The National Archives and Records Administration opines that over 90% of firms that experience around 7 days of downtime shut down business operations within a year. While having a plan won’t prevent natural disasters from taking place, it’ll be handy at not only protecting your data but also making sure that data center downtime doesn’t harm your company.

#2: Protects your valuable information

Just imagine for a minute you lose irreplaceable data! How would your clients feel? Such a situation is embarrassing. It can ruin your hard-earned reputation big time. Loss of data can leave your clients not only nervous but also irritated, perhaps even annoyed to cancel business with you. Losing data affects the way clients view you. They feel as though you’re incapable of protecting their data. To avoid this embarrassing and unprofessional situation, it’s prudent have a data backup and recovery plan.

#3: Reduces the chances of cyber attacks

As more data is moved online, cyber criminals escalate their efforts and focus on enterprises they believe are unprotected. In most instances, it means many businesses, especially the small ones become vulnerable. By having a plan in place, businesses can be able to reduce the impact of attacks. It goes miles to prevent companies from losing their valuable data.

#4: Protects client data

Businesses store plenty of valuable customer data. As such, companies can’t afford to lose such confidential data. Additionally, they can’t let it slip to get into the wrong hands. By setting up an effective plan, you’ll be able to properly control and store your data. Consequently, damaging your brand reputation is the last thing you’ll have to be worried about.

Does anything tie up your mental bandwidth, money, and time much like technology? You did not start your business to spend every day dealing with complexities of networks, software, computers, and other gadgets necessary to run it. You can alleviate all these problems with cloud computing. By investing in the perfect combination of cloud services and software helps to streamline daily operations, improve your bottom line and tighten security. The other beauty of moving your business to the cloud is that you can access your apps and services on any device from anywhere.

So why should you move your business to the cloud? The following are the 4 reasons you didn’t think of to move your business to the cloud:

#1: Keeps your business resilient through natural disasters

Florida, the Sunshine State, is home to numerous natural disasters. Floods, wildfires, tornadoes, tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes frequently affect residents and visitors of Florida. The last thing you want is your business to come to a halt when an important contract or document is inside a cabinet within your red-zoned office. To improve the resilience of your business throughout the countless natural disasters in Florida, it’s prudent to move your IT system to the cloud. Rather than waiting for disaster to strike for you realize the significance of going digital, you need to plan ahead.

#2: Ability to access your office from anywhere

By shifting your operations to the cloud, all you need to do is snap and you are in your office. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on a beach in the Bahamas, or having fun in Las Vegas, when your system is in the cloud, everything is a walk in the park. Collaborating with your employees or colleagues becomes effortless since all operations are online. It goes miles to make your life easier. Your location geographically doesn’t need to affect your business progress or ideas when you have your business operations are on the cloud. You can be on another part of the world, or just in the next office cubicle, it doesn’t matter, everything will work out perfectly. You can access your business operations using any device.

#3: Enhances data security

Failure to secure your business operations and files effectively can cost you dearly. Even if your business is small, data loss prevention is of utmost importance. Cloud services are indispensable. Storing your data in a cloud based software guarantees protection from offsite breaches like in-house judgment and negligent employee (s). Are you thinking about physical security? Just picture your server securely stored in a storage room or inside a closet? Can your office cleaner manage to plug in a USB stick? To guarantee security, cloud providers provide 24/7 security personnel and a fully-managed Tier 4 data center featuring multiple locked doors. Business-class providers typically offer comprehensive security that ranges from malware protection and anti-virus to sophisticated data encryption and features that address compliance standards like PCI and HIPAA.

#4: Helps save money

Software licensing, cooling costs, upgrading of servers, maintenance of servers, and the space servers take up etc all cost money. This is in addition to the bill shock or clutter when emergency upgrades come calling. Instead of using this money to pay for these costs, you can reinvest it into your business. The best attribute about cloud service providers is the fact that they provide pay-per-user plans, which you can scale, based on the needs of your business. By shifting your business operations to a cloud-based service, you’ll be able to either reduce costs or shift them to a constant monthly fee.

Final Thoughts

Cloud computing has helped many businesses in an array of ways. That explains why many businesses are shifting to the cloud. In fact, 37% of small business in the United States have adapted fully to cloud computing. In future, more and more businesses will join the fray. The above are the top 4 reasons you didn’t think of to move your business to the cloud.

Technology has come a long way, and sometimes it seems like you need a computer technology degree to run a business these days, However, there are many other options a business owner can choose to make sure their business is running smoothly and efficiently using the latest technology available.

When you run a business, you don’t need to be an expert on every aspect of your business. You just need to know how to hire people who are experts in what you want them to do. If your business is utilizing a complex computer network, then you should hire an expert that can provide you active network monitoring.

Active Network Monitoring Improves Reliability

http://sjctech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/SWFL-active-network-monitoring.jpgYou wouldn’t buy a car and not have it serviced. So I am assuming you understand that a computer network will need servicing as well. Active network monitoring is a component of your computer networks servicing. It monitors your network to see what problems are going to happen and allows them to be fixed before you actually have a problem. Imagine if your car had that type of service plan.

Active network monitoring can see if a component of your network is giving errors, or running improperly, and sometimes can make fixes remotely. If those fixes don’t work, it can back up that system and flag it for replacement before there is a problem that will really cost you.

Active Network Monitoring Improves productivity

Have you ever gone to do something on your computer and just couldn’t believe how slow everything was running? Now think about how much time your staff might be spending waiting for programs to open, pages to load, etc. Active network monitoring can find what is causing the network to be slow and, in many cases, fix it remotely. Even if the problem can’t be fixed remotely, the problem will be found and a solution will be presented that will get your staff moving faster, and being more productive. Pay your staff to work, not to tittle their thumbs while they wait for the network

Active Network Monitoring Makes Your Network More Secure

43% of cyber attacks target small businesses. This is a dramatic increase over the past few years, and it will probably continue to go up. There are many types of cyber attacks. Some cyber attacks hack into your network to try to steal information, credit card records, customer lists, etc. Some cyber attacks break into your network to try to use your network to power other nefarious activities. Some cyber attacks simps want to crash your network.

No matter what type of cyber attack your may face (and chances are, you will face one), active network monitoring can see the attack as soon as it starts, and make adjustments to make sure your network is not compromised.

Active Network Monitoring Will Save You Money

Whether it is by reducing downtime, improving productivity, or stoping cyber attacks, active network monitoring will save you money.

If you have a business in Southwest Florida that relies utilizes a computer network, the SJC active network monitoring can keep your network running optimally. Give us a call today and let us tell you how we can make your business run more smoothly.

What is VOIP?

These days, many small businesses are looking for ways to cut costs. There is an old saying that “A penny saved is twice got”. VOIP is a great way to save a lot more then a penny. But what is VOIP?

VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol”. What this means is that with a VOIP system, you are using the internet to make phone calls instead of a traditional telephone service over copper wires.

Switching to VOIP Can Save You A Lot of Money

http://sjctech.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/VOIP-for-your-SWFL-business.jpgVOIP services usually have a much lower cost for both domestic and international calls. They also require less expense in setting up and wiring for a multi line phone system. Another benefit of VOIP phone systems is that they usually come with options that cost extra when using traditional phone services.

How much can you save with VOIP services? According to a Tech.Co study, you can cut initial costs for a business phone system by up to 90%, and you can reduce the cost of calls by around 40%. That is more then a few pennies got.

VOIP Is More Convenient and Can Make You More Productive

Most VOIP systems have video calls, conference calls, and even video conference calls included in their service. This helps you make sure your team is on the same page even when they are not in the same building. In addition, with many VOIP services, you can log into your account and use your service even when you are not at the office. This means you can make and receive calls from your office number using your tablet or laptop when you are out of town. You can even access your voicemails from other devices, and in some VOIP services will transcribe your voicemails and send them to you as emails or text messages.

VOIP Has Several Added Features

We can’t emphasize enough the amazing features you get with VOIP at substantially cheaper rates then you get with a real phone service.

Many systems also have a “Find me / Follow me” call routing system where the VOIP system will forward your calls to a list of other numbers before sending the caller to voice mail. For example, you may have your office phone ring twice, then on the third ring, your home phone will ring, and then on the fifth ring, the call will go to your cell phone. If you don’t answer any of them, the call will go to voicemail that can then be transcribed and texted or emailed to you.

Inbound / outbound call detail reports are another great feature of some managed VOIP systems. Data is important to running a small business, and your VOIP system can send you detailed reports that let you view details of your call history, including rate centers, duration, originator, destination, and cost.

Advanced call screening is an often overlooked feature of a good VOIP system. You can set up your system to automatically forward certain callers (like your spouse) to your cell phone, or forward other callers (like a nagging salesman) to voicemail.

Most VOIP systems will also have an auto attendant that allows callers to choose from extensions when calling in a main number (to talk to Bob, press 001…) and hold music which is shown to reduce clients hanging up when on hold.

If you want to save some money while bring your SWFL small business into the future of communications, call SJC Tech and we can go over with you all the options you may need to make you and your team more productive for less money.

Things used to be so much easier, right? You had a cash register, a calculator, and a typewriter to do business. What else did you need. Then came the computer. In all honesty, computers have made things easier, and they do so much more then we used to be able to do without them. That doesn’t stop them from being a bit of a pain though. Especially when you have a good sized computer network at your business to deal with. That is why smart business owners contract Network Monitoring to qualified vendors. Here are some other reasons you should consider calling SJC Technology to actively monitor your network.

Troubleshoot issues more easily

Outsourcing your network monitoring gives your SWFL business 24/7 access to highly trained IT professionals who monitor your network, detect problems and fix them. In many cases, this is done before you even know there is a problem. Network monitoring allows these professionals to see every device on your network, and the connections between them. They can monitor availability, packet loss, response time, traffic, error rates and more. This allows them to detect problems in your system before the cause an interruption.

Improve network security

The average cost of a data breach, according to IBM’s 2016 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach Study, is around $4 million. Recent reports state that over 50% of US businesses have suffered some sort of intrusion attempt in the past year. You may think your business is not a target for hackers, but many hackers target small businesses under the premise that they are likely not equipped to handle a security breach. Professional network monitoring don’t just keep an eye out for hardware and software issues, it also monitors the source and nature of all traffic to your network. By monitoring this traffic, it becomes easy to spot suspicious changes to inbound and outbound traffic and allows you to quickly nullify malicious activity. In addition, network monitoring allows you to see and patch the holes in your networks security to prevent future intrusion attempts.

Improve the bottom line

Let’s face it, network downtime affects your bottom line. Not only does it affect your companies reputation in the marketplace, and client satisfaction, but it also affects the productivity levels of your staff. If your network is working at optimal performance levels, your staff can get more done in less time. This saves you money as well as increasing customer satisfaction which earns you money.

Plan for future growth

It isn’t always easy for us to predict when and how our business will grow, although we do know it will grow. Proper network monitoring allows you to see the increase loads on certain systems as well as increased traffic. This allows you to better judge the growth needs of your business, and allows you to implement the needed changes to ensure that you can properly cope with that growth.

In simple terms, Hiring professional Network Monitoring from SJC Technology is about making sure your business is able to run smoothly, and grow even more smoothly. Give SJC Technology a call today and we can talk about your needs and come up with a plan that fits those needs and your budget.

I think we are all tired of hearing about clouds. Especially those big ones that spin around in a circle and have an eye. But unfortunately, hurricanes are a part of life in southwest Florida, and events like Hurricane Irma are a strong reminder of why you need to move your business data to the cloud.

Now I say “strong reminder” because the hurricane itself isn’t the threat to your business data. If that was the case, then we wouldn’t be overly worried. I mean hurricane Irma was bad, but that was the first bad hit we have had since Charley 10 years ago. If we only had to worry about a bad storm every decade or so, then maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But then again, we did get 18 inches of rain and major flooding just a few weeks before Hurricane Irma, and that wasn’t even a tropical storm. That was just a bad summer storm.

The truth of the matter is that your computer systems have a few major weaknesses.

Electricity

Your office computers run on electricity. When the power goes out, your machines turn off. And if the power is off for weeks, it becomes difficult to do your job. But it isn’t just power outages you need to worry about. Your computers circuit boards are made up of thousands of small leads that can easily break if too much power goes through them. Power surges from lightning can destroy your machines and cause major problems with your operations.

I’m sure you are well aware that it doesn’t take a hurricane to cause power outages, or to bring lightning. Thunderstorms can be a daily occurrence during some parts of the year, and power outages are all to common in southwest Florida.

Moving your data to the cloud allows you to make sure your data is available to you at all times. Whether the power is on at your office or not. Data in the cloud is backed up, and always available.

Water

Nothing electrical likes water. Yet in southwest Florida, we have water all around us. And whether it is a hurricane, or just a strong storm, flooding can happen anytime. If your office computers suffer water damage, you can loose everything. Just a little bit of water can wreck a computer, so imagine what the type of flooding we have seen in the past couple months can do. Moving your data to the cloud is a great way to protect your sensitive information from the elements, and will allow you to continue to access your data even if your office looks more like a swimming pool.

Heat

Computers generate a lot of heat, but they don’t like heat that much. And in southwest Florida, we have a lot of heat… heat, and humidity (moisture). That is a combination computers really don’t like. Even if you have a back up generator to keep your office computers running during power outages, if your air conditioner isn’t running as well, you will likely have overheating problems. Even if there is no storm or power outage, if your air conditioner goes out, your computers will have problems. Like many people in southwest Florida, computers are not very reliable when the AC doesn’t work.

Your Business Data Needs To Be In The Cloud

The bottom line is your data is too valuable to leave to the southwest Florida weather. Moving your data to the cloud not only safe guards it from heat, rain and lightning, it also gives you access to the data from anywhere and any device. Even if you evacuate for the storm, you can still access your data from the cloud. That let’s you continue to do business in any circumstances. Contact SJC Technology today and we can help you move your business data to the cloud.

The Cloud seems to be a business buzz word these days, but many small businesses are not really sure what the cloud is, or how it can help them. Here, we will provide a quick explanation of some of the most impressive features of the cloud, and we will show you why your Southwest Florida Business should move to the cloud.

But first, what is the cloud? PCMag explains the cloud like this: “In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet instead of your computer’s hard drive.”

Doing Business From The Cloud Gives Your Real Time Access

What this means is that everyone at your business that you give access to will have a real time, update version of everything. If you are on a job site, and want to make changes to a document from your phone, everyone else in your office will immediately see those changes. You may have an after hours dinner meeting with a client, and make some changes to their account from your tablet, and your office staff will see those changes as soon as they look at the files, even if you haven’t been to the office yet.

Your Southwest Florida business should move to the cloud because you, and all of your staff, will always have all of the latest information at their fingertips wherever they are.

Doing Business In The Cloud Makes Collaboration Work Better

Inspiration doesn’t always work 9-5. If you are collaborating with a team on a project, sometimes your best ideas may come after hours. The problem with this is that other members of the team may also be inspired after hours. In a traditional workflow, everyone would have to wait until the next morning meeting to see what inspiration brought forth the night before. However, with cloud computing, your entire team can see changes to the plan as those changes happen. This makes all of your planning faster and more efficient, and as we all know, faster and more efficient means more productive, and more profitable.

Doing Business In The Cloud Protects Your Business

One of the most important reasons why your Southwest Florida business should move to the cloud is the security that the cloud offers. If you have everything for your business on a local hard rive in your office, you are putting your whole business at risk. Hard drives can crash. Even worse, the Southwest Florida weather can destroy your office computer at a moments notice. Everything from a lighting strike, to a hurricane, to some heavy rains like we had last weekend, puts your office computers, and everything on them, at risk. Moving your business to the cloud puts all of your data in a secure location away from threats of mother nature.

Your Southwest Florida Business Should Move To The Cloud

SJC Technology is a local Southwest Florida company that provides managed IT solutions, cloud computing, VOIP, Network Monitoring, Backups and disaster recovery. We can help your business transition to the cloud and make sure you are ready for whatever Southwest Florida can throw at your business. Our systems will make your business more secure, more productive, and more profitable. Just give us a call and we will help you figure out the best solution for your business.

Over the past few decades, computers have changed the world. There is not an industry operating today that has not felt the impact of the advances of technology. But what do you do when your computers fail?

Why do work computers fail?

This seems like a simple question. However, there is no simple answer. I have seen computers fail for many different reasons. Sometimes it is simple, and fixable. Once, someone brought me their laptop. They told me it died, and they wanted to know if I could get the information off of the hard drive. I told them I would take a look. As it turned out, their computer failed because their charger died. I ordered a new charger, and their computer worked fine. I owned a laptop that failed when the solder that send connects the wire to send the signal to the monitor broke. It was a simple fix.

It is vitally important that you protect your computer and all the information on it to prevent identity theft. By hacking into your computer’s stored information, a thief can gain access to your banking account numbers and passwords in order to steal money. In addition, some hackers are trying to find information about your credit cards to use the numbers to order merchandise. Here are a few tips to protect the information on a computer.

Most people use a password to restrict access to their laptops, cell phones or sensitive documents contained within. However, a password is useless if it is easy to guess or isn’t strong enough to withstand a coordinated attack on whatever it is protecting. What are some ways to create strong passwords, and why is it important to change it on a regular basis?